POSTSCRIPT IN MONROVIA 295

representatives in the international colony craved for
a faster life. They were living on the barren edge of
the country; not one of them had been more than
a few days' trek into the interior, they had the most
meagre and mistaken ideas of the native tribes; nor
would any longer journeys or a more profound know-
ledge of Liberian conditions have been welcome to
the Government, who had seen what damage a roving
foreigner could do them in the British Blue Book
based on a Vice-Consul's journey down the Kru coast.
There was an occasion, many years ago, when the
British residents raised the English flag in Monrovia,
trying to re-enact on a miniature scale the Oudander
revolt in Johannesburg, but the result failed as
ignominiously as the Jameson Raid. I do not think
there was any imperial ambition among the store-
keepers of Monrovia, or among the foreign repre-
sentatives, nor had they much to complain about
from the Government. There was less discrimina-
tion against the white than there was against the
black in most white colonies, and I think a fan-
observer would have been astonished at the modera-
tion of the black rulers. What the whites suffered,
they suffered with the whole population from the lack
of drainage, medical services, communications, and
the desire to intervene was an expression of boredom
rather than of imperialism. The man, perhaps, most
to be pitied was the American financial adviser, an
elderly man who had seen successful service in Arabia
and the Philippines, but whom Liberia had defeated.
For since the President had declared a moratorium,
he had been without any work. Two Poles were the
active unofficial advisers, and the American lived on